Lammo.net: Affiliate Marketing Blog

Part Two of “A Day in the Life of…” shows us a typical day for Helen Southgate, Affiliate Director at DGM. I’m grateful to Helen for agreeing to give us this insight into her daily workings, and indeed to everyone who has agreed to let us spend a virtual day with them.

We have some really interesting people lined up, who all play their part in the Affiliate Marketing Industry - If you would like to take part, then please email me johnATbigideamediaDOTcom. Over to you Helen…

8am - 8.30am - Arrive at work, cup of tea, bowl of cereal and stuck in to my to do list for the day which normally never gets realised as adhoc issues arise throughout the day.

8.30am - 10.00 am - Sift through emails from the previous evening and any any emails that I still need to deal with. I get masses of emails everyday so either have to deal with them myself or pass on to members of account management, affiliate management, sales & marketing and often to tech! We have an internal SLA to respond to all emails with 24 hours so nothing gets left. I also check whether any of the account managers have added an affiliate to the grey list, I often have to investigate affiliate activity and take action if we believe they are in breach of DGM and / or our clients terms, a painstaking job sometimes but we want to make sure everyone is towing the line.

10.00am - 11.00am - Catch up with the affiliate management team to get an update on current activities, any issues and opportunities to be working on for the rest of the week. This is the time when I get a real overview of what everyone is doing and what is happening across the network so I like to do it every Monday.

11.00 - 11.30 - Meeting with Chris Russell-Smith our Marketing Dierctor to discuss upcoming events for affiliates, the A4U Expo and other marketing activity we are doing for DGM to the affiliates market.

11.30 - 12.30 - Working on new ideas for business development of affiliates. The market has changed massively in the last few years and it’s important to look at new partnership and new models that we can work with to help affiliates drive more volumes and attract them to the campaigns we work on. This includes a spec for a new referral system that we are putting together for affiliates.

12.30 - 1.30pm - I take a break for lunch and try to get a quick work out in. I’ve been roped into doing a 10k run with Chris Frost so starting to panick that my training schedule is non-existent 6 weeks before the big race. I come back red faced and get taunted by the team and called Violet Beauregarde. There is continuous banter in the DGM office but not enjoying being on the end of this one!

1.30pm - 2.30pm - I am working on a pitch for some new business with the sales team so I work on my part of this. I’m not sales person material but when I really believe in something that I think will work well for a client I love this part of the job. I’ve been doing this for over 5 years now but I still get excited about the prospects of a new campaign especially as the industry is always changing and there are so many factors to consider.

2.30pm - 3.35 - An affiliate of ours is in the area so drops by unexpectedly to DGM Towers. We have a catch up across the road at the infamous DGM haunt The Vine. We chat about some campaigns they are working on, some new business that they are looking at and opportiunities that we can work on. It’s a great meeting and I’m excited about getting stuck into some new ideas with this affiliate.

3.30 - 5.30 - dgmAffiliates team meeting. This involves everyone from account management, affiliate management and the technical solutions team. It’s one of my favourite parts of the week as we discuss new ideas, things that have gone well, opportunities etc and as everyone is so passionate about what they are doing it can be great fun and sometimes get heated as we all have our own opinions and like to share them! Normally, we have to tell Kevin Sutton to shut up at some point.

5.30 - 6.30 - I work a bit later to get the wheels in motion from some new ideas in the team meeting. At 6.30 I dread the hour journey back home so break it up by meeting a friend for dinner, the training plan is failing at the first hurdle …..

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